4th Reflection

A mid-week holiday.  Happy 4th of July.  Ryan has the Grandkids and Mike is in Town with Pam, so the day will start strong and get much stronger.  Not sure what plans Kate and Brady have, and I promised Tommy O that I would hang with him for some quality holiday time before the day is over.
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We have to keep up the pace at Nanepashemet Telecom, so it won't be a blow out holiday for me.
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Brendt D'Orio gave me some fresh caught Striped Bass that I will chunk up, batter, and throw in the turkey fryer for a special holiday treat.... and   I'll definitely fit in a Dark and Stormy or three, and probably a rocks glass of Lagavulin to commemorate the birth of this great nation.  But not until I get a Harbor Row in with the Tender when the Tides are right.
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The original 4th of July in 1776 was quite a stressful affair for our Founding Fathers as they literally put their life of the line so that the white males in this country could inherit basic freedoms.   Two patriots of that effort, Thomas Jefferson, a slaveholder, and John Adams, an anti-slavery advocate, who both collaborated and competed heavily with each other in their careers, died on the same day fifty years later.   Adams last words were, "Jefferson survives.".... but he had just passed.
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In another forty years or so, slavery was abolished after 600,000 Americans perished fighting each other, and the country was truly on its way to basic freedom for all.  Eventually, the country saw fit to give women equal access to our rights.... and of course, 100 years after the Civil War, Blacks were still denied equal access to the privileges of this country.  But this has changed too.
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I guess the moral of this little diversion is that we are not perfect.   But we should constantly strive to correct the shortcomings in our nature and in our institutions.   And this country gives us the platform do do it.
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To all of you Peeps, who I pretend to be annoyed by.... but really truly cherish......Enjoy your Holiday.